


my dreams don't match my pay

by devastatedbeta (PatriciaR)



Series: ain't no smoke [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accept my apologies in the form of virtual cookies??, And everything she does is butterflies and sparkles as far as he's concerned, Angst?, Canon Compliant up to Season 3, F/M, Gen, I very much feel the same way about her, Implied Child Abuse, Isaac POV, Isaac falls stupidly in love with Cora, Not sure why I edited other ships out of this..., Stream of Consciousness, hurt/comfort?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatriciaR/pseuds/devastatedbeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac knows about loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my dreams don't match my pay

**Author's Note:**

> Some mentions of Isaac's childhood, but nothing graphic. I actually wrote this to see if I could get into Isaac's head enough to write the story I had in mind. Title is from Leslie Clio's "I couldn't care less" which doesn't seem to fit this story at all, but kind of does when you're high on caffeine and false cheerfulness. In other words, I have no idea what I've been thinking. God help me. Hope you enjoy, though! Aaah..

Isaac knew something about losing family members. He knew every one in his pack did, as well. He knew Erica had lost herself to her illness, that Stiles only ever talked and smelled of his father, that Scott's mom had been single for a while now. He knew Boyd was perpetually lonely, remembered the day when Jackson ran out of his house, and the many times he'd later fight with his parents, be emotionally more closed off than he had been all the years Isaac had lived pratically next to him. Even Lydia, or maybe especially her, though her parents were as alive and well as could be. Isaac knew about Allison's mother, everyone knew. None of them knew loss as Derek, and Isaac was a sick guy, but sometimes it helped. Whenever he thought about what and whom he'd lost, he remembered there was worse. There was losing almost your entire family, then losing the last sane member, then having to kill your uncle for killing mentioned last sane member. And even though Peter had come back, how do you overcome that shit? Isaac was pretty sure you don't.

So, yeah, loss seemed to be a pretty reaccuring theme, the foundation of their pack. They also all knew about guilt, and bipolarity. Instincts and logic, stubborness, impulsive decisions and.. consequences. He just hadn't expected how sick it would make him to profit from death like that. Not that he didn't understand the principle of kill or be killed, or even removing people out of the picture to reach your goal. The concept of losing family members and getting insurance money. "Here, they're all dead, but have some hundred thousand dollars, doesn't that make you feel so much better?" Stiles had once said in their literature class, when they had been discussing a contemporary novel. They'd been about thirteen years old.

Now he was eighteen and got full access to insurance and inheritence. And he was pretty sure he might fall apart, because spending that money, acknowleding its existence felt too much like acceptance. Accepting that his mother was gone, his brother was dead, his father had been killed. Accepting that he was alone and needed to live somewhere, eat something. And maybe it would be easier if his family had been healthy. If his father hadn't beat him up, put him in a refrigator, if his mother had smiled at him and his brother, if he hadn't seen the way Jackson's parents tried _so hard_ to be what their son needed in spite of his constant rejection and general asshole-behaviour.

Now he was eighteen and had to decide what to do with the house he grew up in, the old car his brother had saved up money for and his father couldn't sell, his mother's few pictures, and his entire life.

And it wasn't something you could talk about when everyone in your life had their own issues, additionally to rogue werewolves, hunters, territorial packs, and about a thousand other supernatural shitheads. He couldn't sit down next to Scott and just say, "Hey, I'm in need of about 200 therapy sessions, you got time to talk about how I really fucking loved my dad and really hate him and think I should have done something, and about the fact that everything he was and still is is now up to me, thanks?" because they weren't like that. None of his pack members were close before, except Scott and Stiles, depending on the definition also Lydia and Jackson. And none of them talked about stuff. They denied and repressed, they threw themselves into trouble to ignore the mess that was their life, and Isaac would really like to do the same, but was that really an option?

And then there was Cora, who just suddenly showed up, and who made Peter's heart skip several beats and Derek shiver almost unnoticably. Cora was something else, and she knew loss, but she also knew how to accept an apology you never got. Cora knew how to hug someone without pretending to have no reason for it other than her weredom. Cora knew guilt and loss, stubborness, bipolarity and impulsive decisions and consequences, and she managed to bare her teeth, claw her way out of whatever shit life threw her in, kiss her family, and decide what to do next. 

Cora was as much a fixer as was Stiles, but without the ADHS, without the safety-net, without the need to make up for something she'd never done. Cora relied on herself, took things in stright, and somewhere between the Alpha pack, sacrifices and hurt, she managed to patch his pack up. Cora, not Derek or Scott, sat down next to him, bumped their shoulders, and told him he could also freeze the accounts for now. Told him he could take a lawyer to work his way through all the paperwork, that she knew someone just right. 

Cora was the one who accepted what it was when he wrapped himself around her, who knew what he was saying when he looked away from people or let things from his past slip past his lips. His family and his pack taught him how to survive, but Cora made him realise there was more than survival. And maybe it was egotistical of him, but sometimes he allowed himself to think he was her favourite, and pretended to know about safety and trust, and how it felt to create instead of destroy.


End file.
